Hundara Galata, Monenus 2016 State-building establishes state-nation (s) [the state that makes diversity and democracy possible] as opposed to nation-building [which urges to create one nation (nation-state) without due consideration of diversity]. Through the institutional, policy and politico-psychological innovations, state-building is geared to accommodate diversity and ensure democratic good governance. In this regard, federal governance has the potential to do so as it combines elements of shared-rule and regional self-rule. Since 1991, Ethiopia has been in the track of state-building project experimenting identity-based federal model on one hand and lavishly adding (un) responsive strategies. This paper argues responsive state-building strategies consolidate federal democracy; foster culture of accommodating and managing diversity; strengthens federal decentralization and resolves conflict in Ethiopia. To the contrary, the paper challenges any unresponsive state-building approach that emanate from government’s ideology, policy, practice on one hand and unconstitutional ways of peoples’ reaction to the state. application/pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/324252 https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/324252/files/22_Galata Monenus Hundara.pdf eng IFF info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.51363/unifr.diff.2016.22 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/2813-5261 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC BY federalism ethnic federalism; state-building responsive and unresponsive approaches info:eu-repo/classification/udc/34 EPRDF’s State-building Approach: Responsive or Unresponsive? http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_18ws